I was eagerly awaiting the Waldorf Blofeld this past spring, but when it was finally released, the majority of reviews were somewhat underwhelming. I saw a whole slew of slightly used units up for sale this summer, and I decided to hold off on purchasing one. In the meantime, I bought an Access Virus classic desktop, and while I greatly admire its sound-sculpting capabilities and its industrial presence, its interface is not the most inspiring. I'm considering selling it and replacing it with a Blofeld, but I just wanted to see if anyone had any opinions out there now regarding the comparison of the two. The Blofeld's bugginess, from what I understand, has been somewhat tended to, but I'm not sure which, if any bugs still remain, and if current owners are still enamored with the machines. I have an analog polysynth and several monos right now, and I am looking for a VA/digital unit to perform accompanying duties.

I have a Blofeld and a TI, personally they are different enough to warrant both, but out of a Virus Classic and a Blofeld I would prefer the Blofeld. It is the equivalent of a sonic toolbox. You can cook up all sorts of strange stuff, but it can also behave itself and be very musical.

I'll go through some things that I have observed about the Blofeld. It's a very bright sounding synth, the filters in my opinion aren't as "analogue" sounding as the Virus ones, but are capable of being fm'd and the lfos go well into the audio range, so some sounds are very unique. Oscillator sync is great on the Blo and in my opinion better than the Virus. The oscillators themselves are more solid than the Virus and have a HUGE frequency range, I haven't heard any aliasing either when swept up high.

The envelopes are extremely fast (faster than the Virus) but they sound a little weak and too snappy in some instances. I find the Virus makes a fast envelope sound really fat, whereas the Blofeld is much more surgical and precise. I haven't had any show-stopping bugs or crashes at all, but that's just me. The Blofeld has a really powerful mod matrix and with modifiers you can do things like quantize envelopes and lfos along with really weird stuff I don't understand! The drive units are also great adding anything from warm overdrive - which helps get a bit more analogue character back, to absolutely absurd sonic destruction with binary overflow sounding harsh and extreme. The Blo also has great comb filters, the Virus doesn't!

The Wavetables are classic Waldorf and all have a brilliance control which is great for adding or removing grit from them.

Choice is yours but the Blofeld has more sonic mileage than a classic.

breitt wrote:I was eagerly awaiting the Waldorf Blofeld this past spring, but when it was finally released, the majority of reviews were somewhat underwhelming. I saw a whole slew of slightly used units up for sale this summer, and I decided to hold off on purchasing one. In the meantime, I bought an Access Virus classic desktop, and while I greatly admire its sound-sculpting capabilities and its industrial presence, its interface is not the most inspiring. I'm considering selling it and replacing it with a Blofeld, but I just wanted to see if anyone had any opinions out there now regarding the comparison of the two. The Blofeld's bugginess, from what I understand, has been somewhat tended to, but I'm not sure which, if any bugs still remain, and if current owners are still enamored with the machines. I have an analog polysynth and several monos right now, and I am looking for a VA/digital unit to perform accompanying duties.

you should look into picking up the microwave XT, they go for about the same as the blofeld does new, and one will compliment your setup very nicely

you'd have your va bases covered with the virus (which IMO it does better than waldorf), and your digital sounds covered with the XT (which IMO waldorf does better)

you still get that waldorf sound, and a much better interface... though the xt isnt anywhere near as deep as the blofeld, and I don't really know any synths that are, its mod matrix is ridiculous, its almost too much!

No one cares, no one sympathizes,so you just stay home and play synthesizers.